


Wipe the Years Away

by AVirtoMusae



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Depression, Henry Laurens's grade a parenting, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicide, Trans Alex, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7137071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVirtoMusae/pseuds/AVirtoMusae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It was not ordinary meeting. It was the names that stunned each man. Once, they had seen the other’s name daily, printed across their wrist.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Or, Henry Laurens made John cut Alex's name off his wrist, and here are the consequences</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wipe the Years Away

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the deleted song "Congratulations."Please note the tags before reading.

“Who’s that man talking to Burr?” John asked Lafayette. The bar was loud, hypnotic, and the man talking to Burr was even more so. His voice could be heard even from ten feet away, where John stood watching.

“Alexander Hamilton. Hasn’t everyone heard of him?” Lafayette replied, nudging John’s shoulder.

“Huh.” A half-smile formed on John’s face. “I like him.”

“I know.”

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

“What time is it?!” a voice shouted from across the bar. Ten feet away, and the shout was still heard. Alex turned, glad to have a brief excuse to ignore Burr. “SHOWTIME!”

Burr huffed, but it went unnoticed. Alex stood entranced, watching the man start karaoke. “Who’s that?” Alex sighed.

“John Laurens. Everyone knows him and his band of miscreants.”

“He’s cool.”

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

Their eyes met across the room.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

It was not ordinary meeting. It was the names that stunned each man. Once, they had seen the other’s name daily, printed across their wrist.

“You can’t have a man’s name on your wrist,” Henry Laurens said the day the name on John’s wrist had turned from Alexandra to Alexander. “It’s unnatural. I can’t have you infecting my kids.”

John was many things — rash and reckless and beyond rescue. He had hopes and dreams. He could not lose that. He needed his father’s money. More than that, he loved his siblings. They were the only good in a lonely world.

In another life, John might have been sent away.

“If you want to remain part of this family, you will make that name go away.”

That night in the bathroom, John Laurens had hated Alexander Hamilton. He hated the man that did this. He hated himself for having a male soulmate. John Laurens hated. Lose the possibility of love or lose everything he had: The choice was simple.

He pressed the knife to his skin and cut. He was sure his family could hear his screams as he cut Alexander Hamilton out of his life, off his wrist. 

John Laurens woke up in the hospital.

Suicide attempt, they said. John had to go into therapy.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

“I’m John Laurens,” John told Alex. “You’re Alexandr-Alexander Hamilton. It’s nice to meet you at last.”

“Likewise,” Alex replied, ducking his head and grinning. He blushed.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

Alexander met the absent soulmate that had abandoned him like everyone else. The name had vanished one day, not long after Alexander admitted to himself that he was a man. Was his soulmate not going to accept him?

Alexander researched John Laurens. Disowned son of South Carolina Senator Henry Laurens. John Laurens seemed like a decent person. It had to be a lie, but Alex wanted to take the chance anyway. He was not going to throw away his shot.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

“Coffee?” John asked, smiling nervously at Alex. He fiddled with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. 

Alex nodded. “That sounds great.” He offered John his hand on a whim, and on a whim, John took it.

They smiled at each other. “Let’s go.”

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

Coffee was great.

So was texting overnight.

So was coffee the next day.

Dinner.

Hot chocolate.

Building a snowman.

Clubbing.

John Laurens realized he had fallen in love with the soulmate whose name no longer graced his wrist. He had not talked to anyone in his family in years, not since his father had disowned him in spite of everything. 

He wished he could introduce Alexander to his family.

He wanted everything to feel as though this were all real.

It couldn’t be real, not without those words on his wrist to confirm it.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

The cuts on John’s wrists were always there. It made Alex afraid. He did not want to lose John. Finding John staring at a bottle of pills or with his legs dangling off a roof was worse. Alex sobbed for hours and clung to John the first time it had happened. 

And the second.

And the third.

It happened too often.

Alex wanted it all to get better, but it never would.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

John hated how distraught he always made Alex. He hated Alex’s tears. How awful was he to always make Alex so upset? He was a burden.

He didn’t know how to be anything else.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

“Who are you?” Alex asked the girl. She was in a few of his classes. She was pretty, sweet. She was a good girl.

“My name is Elizabeth Schuyler.”

Alex felt his stomach flip. This was the person whose name was now written on the inside of his wrist, ever since he was young and John’s name had disappeared. “Good to meet you.”

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

There was something different about Alex that day, ever since he met Eliza. He found himself talking to her more and more often. Some days, he talked to her more often than he talked to John.

Then John got an internship in Pennsylvania.

He left the next day.

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

The sobbing voicemail came a few weeks later, just three days before Alex’s birthday.

“Alex, I love you, and I always will. Don’t doubt it. I love you, baby girl. You’re so good. Too good for me. I can’t do this anymore. You should get with Eliza. She’s better than me. She won’t make you cry at night. Alex, move on. Love you. Goodbye.”

He turned off his phone and pulled Eliza toward him and rested his head on her shoulder.

“I love you, Eliza.”

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

Alex told himself he was going to stay true to John even if John refused all contact with him. ( _Why the fuck wouldn’t John pick up?!_ ) He didn’t. He found himself so drawn to Eliza, and soon, she was the one he kissed and came home to.

John was right.

Eliza didn’t make him cry.

Alex loved Eliza.

Alex still loved John.

John was still gone.

Alex wanted to have them both. 

Why shouldn’t he?

★ ✥ ★ ✥ ★

The letter came a couple months later.

“It’s from John,” Eliza told Alex before leaving the room. Alex opened it.

_Dear Mr. Hamilton,_

_This is not my son Jacky. I am Henry Laurens, Sr. I want to apologize to you, and I wish to apologize to my son, too. I was wrong to make him cut your name from his wrist. In doing so, I made a grave error. I wish I could do something more to make amends to you and to him. I was a horrible father to my son, and though I have many regrets, that is foremost among them. Thank you for everything_

_The police found my son in the river three days ago. He had been there for a few months, apparently. Suicide. All his belongings have been left to you. He wanted to be buried with the rest of the family. I want you to feel free to visit his grave whenever you want._

_Regretfully,  
Henry Laurens, Sr._

Alex pulled the letter to his face and sobbed. This was why his wrist read Elizabeth Schuyler: John was always going to leave him like this. Alex sobbed harder. _Why had he not made sure that John would stay with him? Why had he not fought for John?_

Later, Alex clung to Eliza and sobbed.

There was nothing anyone could do to help.

He had failed John. John was gone.

There was nothing he could do but wish he could wipe away the years and bring his John back to life.

It could never be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback appreciated.
> 
> I will also take prompts for Hamilton one-shots (Lams preferred) . =)
>
>> A Virto Musae  
> By the Virtue of the Muse


End file.
